"I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?"
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline
-ooo-
DAY THREE
-continued-
The sky was dark and the rain was still falling.
Perhaps after a while he fell into an exhausted asleep... if one could sleep in dreams.
He wasn't sure and it hardly mattered.
Either way after a while the sobs had softened and then faded completely leaving him drifting in the aftermath.
Scorched clean for the moment, still trembling in the aftermath of that overwhelming onslaught of emotion.
It seemed he'd laid there forever as the rain continued to fall.
It had been falling for a long time and no time at all.
What was wrong with him?
What did any of it mean?
He shuddered again, remembering how it had felt to have her fingers creeping across him, to let her...
No, to let himself, because she wasn't... she wasn't real.
None of this could be real.
Because if it was real...
If it was real...
Then they were still...
No.
Not they.
He.
He was still there.
Still here.
They'd escaped, but he was... stuck.
Trapped.
There.
Here.
And he wasn't sure which was worse.
Either this was what he was like... what he'd always been like underneath it all.
At the core.
All these vile images and horrifying desires.
All of this was part of him, inside of him.
Or this was all real and if that were true...
If that were true...
How much of what he'd seen, what he'd felt, could be trusted?
How much was her?
How much was him?
How much was real?
It had all been so… vivid.
Of course, everything that had come before had been too and if this were just more of the same then maybe it made sense that it would feel as real as anything.
Only... everything had made sense there.
Kind of.
Mostly.
Though, in retrospect, maybe they'd been a little too willing to accept some things.
Talking bears weren't completely outside of the realm of possibility.
But those giant mechanical beasts?
The elaborate executions?
That mechanical version of Nekomaru hadn't really been all that believable either, in retrospect, but they'd all just been willing to accept it as if it was totally reasonable for one of their friends to become a giant...
Robot?
Cyborg?
Was there a difference?
There was probably a difference.
Kazuichi had probably made a point of running down all the differences for him at some point.
Or he would have... if he'd bothered to ask.
He wasn't sure if he had or not.
He rolled onto his back, turning his face up into the rain, eyes squeezed shut, still shaking, his teeth buried painfully in his bottom lip.
Maybe he was just crazy.
Maybe that was all this was. He kept thinking about it again and again, turning it over and rolling it under and going over and over it and back and forth until all his arguments were beginning to wear away to nothing.
His name was Hinata Hajime.
This is what he thought he knew:
He was probably crazy. He was almost definitely a terrible person. But if he wasn't crazy, or maybe even if he was, he might still be trapped in that game... her game. Waking up might have been a lie. His friends might have been a lie. That hope might have been a lie. He couldn't trust anything.Or anyone.
Or anything.
Not even himself.
But if he was still trapped in the virtual world somehow...
And he was probably just crazy for even thinking that.
But if he wasn't...
If everything he was experiencing was still that world, her world, then he might not be alone.
Might not be the only one.
Komaeda.
He could still feel him against his fingertips, taste him on his tongue, hear his rough, rasping laughter.
It had been easy to excuse it away, to excuse everything away when he'd thought he was nothing more than a figment of his imagination.
Because it didn't matter.
It didn't matter if he put his dick in his mouth or told him he loved him or hated him or that he wanted him, because it wasn't real. It wasn't supposed to be real. Even when he'd just decided to play along he'd still... he'd still been... it hadn't mattered. Not really. He'd just selfishly gone along, chased after him like he was a rabbit gone down a hole, ignored all the signs that he didn't simply exist for his benefit.
But if he was real... if he'd done all those things with him, to him, he just...
He felt sick.
He was sick.
If this Komaeda were his Komaeda...
No, not his.
Never his.
He'd never been his.
He'd never really known him at all.
Hadn't cared about him.
Not really.
Because if he had, he would have known.
Would have seen, would have figured it out sooner.
He was sure he would have.
But he hadn't.
Even though Komaeda had been telling him all along.
But he'd been so caught up in his own shit that he hadn't...
He hadn't been listening.
Had just dismissed every strange comment Komaeda made as nonsense or cruelty, because he didn't understand.
And maybe just because he didn't really want any of it to be real.
Not really.
Not after everything they'd done to each other, with each other.
But he couldn't seem to escape the creeping dread that he was right.
That they were both trapped there.
And neither of them had seen it.
He'd been so caught up in the tangled mess of own selfish, stupid feelings that he hadn't heard him at all, not really.
And Komaeda... he wasn't sure what Komaeda had been thinking at all.
He never had been.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling sick and sicker still as the gauze grazed his face.
That gauze he could still only vaguely remember wrapping around himself.
He couldn't stop shaking.
He was so tired of wondering.
Of not knowing.
He curled back on his side, opening his eyes to stare into the dark of the night, across the rain slick pavement to the shadow of the road beyond.
Komaeda was at the hospital.
Or he had been.
He could... go there.
Go there and just ask him.
But...
Would he be able to trust in the answer?
How could he trust anything he saw?
Anything he felt?
Anything he heard?
He was so...
He closed his eyes again and wished the rain would stop falling.
That he would just wake up and find himself staring up at the bland, boring white of his bedroom ceiling.
That everything that had happened, that he thought had happened, even the things he didn't quite remember, would have been nothing more than a long, strange dream.
He wished he were boring and ordinary and nothing ever happened to him and no one bothered to remember him and everything was awful again.
Because at least then he could believe it.
It was easy to believe he was nothing.
Easy to be forgotten.
To be no one.
In the end, it was a relief to let darkness and exhaustion drag him down, because down in the dark he didn't have to think about what he had done.
He didn't have to think about all those hazy, strange, disjointed memories that made no sense and every bit of sense and made him feel so...
He didn't have to think about what was real.
When he woke he was walking across the beach.
The sun was shining bright and high in the sky, the air thick and blistering with warmth, shoes crunching and sinking into the thick sand.
And he was different.
All those feelings, all that horror and sadness and pain all seemed very far away.
Like it had all happened to someone else entirely.
Like it had all just been a story he'd heard somewhere.
A tale so boring he'd forgotten most of it already.
And then it was gone.
He watched Naegi Makoto's dark t-shirt clad back receding into the distance, frowning as he realized he'd been unconsciously matching his pace to the slow plod of feet behind him rather than the brisk step of the man before him.
"Did you know," he commented from even further behind him than he'd been the last time he'd spoken, a smile in his voice. "That when hippopotami sleep in the water their bodies automatically bob up to the surface to take a breath then sink back down again?"
It takes him a minute to parse the strange feeling in his chest. It's not quite irritation, but it's close.
It's... confusion?
Perhaps.
It felt a little like buzzing through channels on a television in that it left him feeling the same strange momentary fascination as he observed each odd little disjointed piece of action he'd discover from one flip to the next. None of it could ever hold his interest on its own, but the unintentional patterns channel flipping created occasionally offered a satisfying distraction he couldn't eek from the predictability of conventional programming. He could craft all those glimpses, those unrelated scenes into thin, bite-size stories, transient creations to be observed and discarded as fast as he liked.
Listening to Komaeda Nagito felt the same.
As if every strange disconnected thing Komaeda said was something unexpected, something unpredictable, specifically cultivated for his benefit.
To entertain and be discarded and forgotten from moment to moment.
"Why are you doing this?" He turned so he could see his face, judge the sincerity of his response.
"Don't you know?" He asked, grinning and looking vaguely feverish.
Of course he knew.
How could he not know?
But knowing didn't make it any simpler to comprehend. Komaeda Nagito's patterns were strange, erratic in a way most were not. It made him difficult to predict to a point and that made his motivations challenging to quantify.
Randomness for the sake of randomness was boring, but in this he could see a clear purpose and that made it something different.
Not quite interesting, but a relative anomaly.
Something...
New.
"You're… doing it for me. Why?"
He shrugged, a smile playing across his lips, "You seemed to be enjoying it."
Enjoying it?
Not a completely accurate assessment.
He couldn't enjoy things, not by standard definitions.
Most people seemed to equate enjoyment with happiness more than vague satisfaction which was the best he was capable of.
It had been… not unlike the ship in those first moments, a brief novelty that defied immediate expectation, delayed analysis.
Logic dictated that everything about Komaeda Nagito should be boring, as boring as anything and everything else had been since he'd awoken in that room beneath Hope's Peak and begun going through the motions.
That this was all merely a momentary deviation from the course he had set for himself and it would only disappoint him in the end.
That Komaeda Nagito and his motivations were as boring as everything else.
He turned away, forcing his attention back to the task at hand, the reason he had come all this way and put forth all this effort.
He did not have the patience for such childish antics.
For such pointless distraction.
"I'm not," he murmured, to shut down further attempts, but his voice came out softer than he'd intended.
"Would you two please hurry up?" Naegi Makoto called over his shoulder, "We need to get started quickly or we're going to run out of time."
He could practically feel Komaeda Nagito's confusion like a physical presence behind him, a millstone catching around his neck.
"Are we?" He asked curiously, the scuff of his shoes against the sand slowing even as he threw a hand back to catch his wrist, to drag him forward to match his own quickened pace.
Naegi Makoto had not been incorrect.
Time was short and he would not allow anything to stand in his way, certainly not him.
He yelped, tripping along with him, surprise sweeping his already labored breath away and leaving him gasping like a fish out of water. "W-wait, I…"
He felt him stumble again and released his hold, dropping to a knee in front of him so that his legs caught against his back, tipping him forward so he almost fell over the top of him with a startled grunt.
It had not been a truly an impulsive decision to do so, of course. He could see easily enough how these events would play out. In every scenario he could see him struggling, see himself losing time trying to coax him forward, to urge him on in a dozen different ways and each and every one of those scenarios ended with some variation on this theme.
He could delay it, but he would always end up carrying Komaeda Nagito into that building.
It was as inevitable as the passage of time.
"Get on," he ordered, tone abrupt, impatient, as he reached back to tug his hair over his shoulder, out of the way.
He sometimes thought of cutting it, but it provided a distraction and he was always in want of distractions.
Though not for much longer.
"What are you-"
He sighed heavily. He was well used to having to explain himself to people, but it never pleased him to have to do so. "Your body is weak. You're already at your limit. You must be necessary if you are here so I will carry you to the facility."
"I thought I was boring?"
"That doesn't make you special," he murmured staring down at the stretch of their shadows across the sand. "It just makes you like everyone else."
"Huh," Komaeda replied, fingers closing over his shoulder as he flung his other arm around his neck and leaned heavily in over him, sighing relief against his hair. "Th-That sounds really dull."
"…It is," he answered as he slid arms beneath his knees and rose to his feet.
He didn't tell him that this was the most interesting conversation he'd had in years.
There was no point and he had little patience for pointless things.
Somehow Komaeda Nagito is lighter than he expects him to be.
It's surprising.
Perhaps it is merely an issue of perspective or perhaps his talents are beginning to fail him in small ways or perhaps there is simply more to Komaeda Nagito than he could see through simple, disinterested observation. It hardly matters, particularly now when they're at the end of things, but it's another inconsistency, another distraction, another point of interest offered by a man who should be anything but interesting.
Not that it matters.
Come what may, he would die soon.
Of course, he should have died already.
Luck was boring, but it was also difficult to quantify.
It always had been.
Still.
This was, more or less, a place where stories would end and begin anew.
What would Komaeda Nagito's story be?
Something boring and trite, no doubt.
Sand crunched beneath his feet as they continued on their way and the waves were a soft constant rush of sound in the background as they spilled across the sand.
Boring and monotonous as the turn of the world.
Fingers sifted absentminded through his hair, tugging over the occasional knot with the even more occasional murmur of completely insincere apology.
No one has ever touched him so casually before, as if there was no purpose to it beyond the act itself.
He didn't dislike the feel of his fingers in his hair or the vaguely uncomfortable sweat-soaked warmth of him against his back.
He didn't even particularly mind the soft hum of a tune he didn't recognize, lyrics sung in Belgian-accented English.
Why Belgian?
It didn't matter, of course, so he didn't ask.
It was just another oddity for the pile.
His singing voice was surprisingly pleasant for all that it wavered in and out and stumbled over certain syllables. He occasionally seemed to forget the lyrics altogether, humming instead to pass the time to the next word he knew and that made it reasonably interesting to listen to and more unpredictable than music typically was.
The words had eventually become soft and slurring, dragging long as he slumped more intimately against him, his limbs growing loose and heavy as exhaustion drew him down into sleep and he hunched forward to compensate for the shift in weight as he subsided toward sleep.
He hadn't missed the singing when it had faded to a mumble and then finally to silence against his shoulder, but the ocean waves lapping against the shore seem significantly less interesting by comparison.
He briefly considers waking him and asking him to continue, but dismisses the idea out of hand.
It hadn't been boring.
But it likely would be next time.
Most things were.
Better to let this be the end of it.
After all, as it stood, spending this time in Komaeda Nagito's company had turned out to be a reasonably satisfactory way to pass the time that remained of his final day.
There was little point in chancing the ruin of that satisfaction for so little gain.
"You volunteered to carry him? That's unexpected," Naegi Makoto commented, dropping back to walk beside him as they approached the facility.
"It was more efficient than watching him continue to struggle."
"Was it?" Naegi replied, clearly doubtful.
"Why is he necessary? He's dying, you realize."
"Uh, yeah, I mean, I've read his file, but... I couldn't just leave him out. Everybody has something they want, right? Even you."
"Even me," he agreed.
"He looks pretty cozy there. I always thought he didn't really like being close to people, he must like you."
"He's not a cat."
He laughed, "No, he's not, but he's a funny sort of guy, isn't he?"
He glanced at him briefly and away, "I believe there is a saying about glass houses."
He's not altogether certain why Naegi's words grate against his nerves, but they do.
He hitched his burden up further on his back and increased his pace so Naegi has to step a little faster to keep up.
He is eager for this day to be over, to be done with this one last task.
"Huh," Naegi murmured and the sound is soft and surprised and the change in tone causes his spine to stiffen, his grip on those limp, sleeping limbs to tighten. "I wouldn't have expected that."
He doesn't ask what, he doesn't need to; he can hear the shades of Naegi's insinuation quite clearly.
He keeps his eyes to the path ahead of them, ignoring the unnecessary tangent, the obvious provocation. "How long before the Future Foundation discovers what you have done and comes for us?"
Naegi allows the change of subject with good grace, as he'd known he would.
Predictable.
Boring.
"Oh, I imagine they're already looking for me. Taking that many people from custody wasn't exactly subtle. They know I'm with you so it probably won't take them long to figure out that I'm also the one who took Komaeda. I managed to get ahold of the others a little more quietly, but they're not stupid. I'm sure they've already figured out that I'm gathering you up for a reason. Even if they don't know what that reason is or where I've taken you. So, I figure it's just better to get this done. It's not like I'll be able to stop them from destroying the building or trying to take you all back with them if they find us while you guys are still out of it."
He'd assumed as much.
Nothing he'd had to say was precisely new or unexpected information.
When they finally reached the facility, Naegi jogged ahead of him to open the door, holding it for him as a blast of cool air rushed at them from within the heavily air-conditioned interior.
Komaeda stirred against him, snuffling against the back of his neck as he stepped through into the dark.
He mumbled something soft and disjointed about dogs.
"Do you think this will actually work?" Naegi asked as he slipped past him into the facility.
The room seemed incredibly dark after the bright sunlit morning outside, the dim lit only by the soft glow of the already engaged pods and the much brighter, harsher moss green light of the two that still stood open.
Waiting.
"This would be a poor time for doubts," he replied, as the door fell shut behind them and Naegi pulled it closed with a snap that echoed in the over large space.
"It's not..."
"I am aware that you are simply attempting to make conversation. You're quite bad at it."
"Oh... okay, sorry," Naegi sighed, loud and false beneath the buzzing roar of cooling fans. "I forget how much you hate small talk."
"No, you don't," he replied, sourly.
"No, I don't," Naegi's voice was cheerful and he laughed lightly as he led the way across the dark space to the bank of glowing control monitors. "I just never get tired of seeing that look on your face when I do it. So, how'd your research trip go?"
"I retrieved the information I needed. Only two people died."
It isn't the whole truth, but it's all that is required.
"You know it's really hard to like you when you're still killing people, right?"
He hadn't killed them, but he hadn't saved them either.
He'd discovered over the years that that distinction was one that rarely actually mattered in the eyes of others.
Fortunately, he also didn't particularly care whether Naegi Makoto liked him or not.
"People die every day, it's not a remarkable occurrence. They won't be missed."
"Remind me: is the casual disregard for human life one of your many talents or is that just because you're about as empathetic as a block of cheese?"
"Likely a combination of both," he replied easily, stooping over to scan the text scrolling across the monitors. "Also, you chose to work with me. It's a bit late to complain now."
"Tell me about it," Naegi grouched, flopping down in one of the chairs and wheeling it over to the workstation at the end of the row. He typed a few quick commands into the terminal and then a smile lifted his lips as the screen fluctuated and the text morphed and reformed into the image of what he'd been told was an image of one of Naegi's deceased classmates.
"Good morning, Makoto. It is nice to see you," a soft voice called and he wondered, not for the first time, how much of the power in this facility was being wasted providing it with those dulcet tones.
"Good morning," Naegi murmured, touching fingers briefly against the screen. "It's nice to see you too."
He had little patience for sentiment.
"Was your machine able to complete the necessary calculations?"
"You know their name is Alter Ego so don't call them 'the machine', it's rude. And, yes, they're all set," Naegi sighed. "All that's left is to integrate what you brought. Were you able to get everything you needed?"
"Yes."
"And you're sure this is going to work?"
"You are perfectly aware that computer programming is a talent of mine," he replied, sliding a hand into his pocket to pull the memory stick free. "Their work is pervasive, but this should be more than enough to overwrite the previous directives within the system. When we couple that with the memory wipe program used on your class and the supplementary software it should be sufficient."
"Should be."
"Would you like me to test it on you?'
"Yeah, no thanks. So what happens if it's not? We can't just… this isn't just for you; this needs to work for everyone. We're only going to get one shot at this. You're sure this will be good enough?"
"It will be," he murmured with an authority, a confidence, he did not feel. There were too many variables to be anything close to certain, but this was what he wanted, what was necessary. It didn't help that while he had certainly inherited the talents necessary for understanding both the psychology and neurology involved that the lack of emotional capacity hindered him significantly in his ability to anticipate their reactions and he had not erred on the side of caution, choosing instead to put his faith in his talent and that of these strangers.
There was little point in doing a thing if you weren't willing to risk enough to make it worth the cost.
He closed his fingers over the stick and shifted Komaeda's weight against his back.
He seemed heavier than he had been before.
Naegi shrugged, turning away and typing in a few more prompts into the terminal he was working at, "Well, then I guess we should probably get started. I'll install the programs while you get him up."
"It would be faster if I handled the installation."
"I'm sure it would," Naegi acquiesced, holding his hand out for the memory stick expectantly, "but Alter Ego really doesn't like you very much and they're going to be the one completing the final integration so you should probably let me handle it."
"It's true, I do not like you," the computer commented, earning a small smile from Naegi.
"Your AI program is absurd."
Without access to the program's code and sub-routines he couldn't piece apart its directives and it made it difficult to anticipate.
It wasn't boring, but it wasn't particularly useful to him either.
Naegi's smile widened as if the comment had pleased him on some level, "People are a little absurd, that's what makes everyone unique."
"It isn't people."
"Well, neither are you, strictly speaking, but I try not to hold that against you."
Komaeda shifted restlessly against his back, a soft mewl of pain almost smothered to silence against his hair as Naegi used his momentary distraction to slip the key from his hand.
He'd known he would, but he doesn't make any effort to stop him.
Instead he turned on his heel to find a convenient stretch of floor on which to set his burden.
Arguing further would simply be a waste of time.
He didn't wake when he set him down, just turned, shifted sleepily onto his side, curling in on himself a bit as if he were trying to hold onto whatever warmth he'd left to him.
Komaeda Nagito.
He was...
Was...
The world dissolved into static and darkness and then he was suddenly out on the island again, striding up the bridge that arched between their island and the next beneath the blistering heat of the midday sun. Sweat stuck his shirt uncomfortably to his back as he swore under his breath and stomped up the slick red-painted wood towards the idiot sitting in the very center, at the very highest point, with his feet dangling over the edge. "What are you doing?"
"Hm? Oh, Hinata, hello," he'd barely turned his head, but he didn't need to see his face to hear the wobble of a smile lilting in his voice. He was so weird. "Fishing."
"Fishing?" He wasn't sure why he was surprised exactly, it wasn't like he couldn't see the little tackle box, the rod cradled in Komaeda's pale hands or the extraordinarily long length of wire that fell from the end to vanish into the waves far below. It was perfectly obviously what he was doing.
But, somehow, he'd still expected him to say something else.
He edged a bit closer, peering over the side of the bridge and instantly regretted it as his stomach plummeted and he looked up instead feeling dizzy and light-headed. He'd seen the sunlight glittering against the wire, but it had been impossible to see where it joined the water and now he just wanted go sit down in the middle of the bridge, far, far from the edge.
It was a long, long, long way down.
"Isn't this kind of dangerous?" He asked finally, frowning out at the water and then back at Komaeda who fiddled with the little crank, his bare feet kicking through the air, for all appearances completely oblivious to the fact that all it would take was a single unexpected jerk to send him flying right off the edge.
"Oh... probably," he commented, carelessly. So not oblivious, though that didn't really make the situation any better, if anything it just made it worse. "It's fine though, you really shouldn't worry about trash like me, though it makes me a little happy that you do even if I'm not worth it."
"Shut up," he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to ignore the heat burning in his cheeks. "It's not like I want to worry about you. It'd just be trouble for everyone if you died doing something stupid like this."
"Oh, that makes sense," he replied frowning as he turned away to look back at the ocean, fingers fiddling nervously over the reel, worrying it this way and that. "It should be fine then, I won't die here. I'm lucky, you see. So even if I fell, I'm sure it would all work out somehow."
He huffed a sigh, sitting down tentatively beside him only to have Komaeda turn on him with wide eyes and a faintly horrified expression. "Wh-what are you doing?"
"Huh?" He'd startled. He hadn't expected that at all. Usually Komaeda was almost thankful when he... he... he was already scrambling to his feet, unsettled by the sudden rejection.
It wasn't like he wanted to hang out with him or anything.
His sudden interest in fishing just seemed really... fishy, was all.
He groaned at his own lameness, pausing halfway to his feet and turning his attention back to Komaeda with a grimace. "Sorry, I just... Do you want me to go?"
"No!" He exclaimed, flustered, reaching out to grab him as if he intended to yank him back down beside him, but losing his grip on the pole in the process and immediately turning back make a grab for it, leaning out into the open air as the pole tipped off his lap and fell.
"Watch it!" He yelped, snatching at Komaeda's jacket and yanking backwards, panicked, because for a second it had seemed like all that flailing about would send him right over the edge.
They both watched in silence as the pole plummeted to the water below.
"Oh," Komaeda murmured, sitting back, frowning and not quite looking at him. "No, I just... I'm... I... it's dangerous."
"That's what I just said, wasn't it?" He groaned, flopping back against the warm boards of the bridge. The adrenaline of the moment was already fading, leaving him shaky and uncertain. "You're not that damn lucky. If you want to fish, do it somewhere safer."
"No, that's not..."
He heard the rustle of clothes and blinked his eyes open as the warmth of the sun was interrupted by a sudden shadow. Komaeda was hovering over him, blocking out the sun as he stared down at him with the strangest look on his face, almost frantic. "I... Hinata… will you kill me? Can you do it here? This would be a really nice place to die and there's no one around. You could push me off and no one would ever know."
He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, "This again? Seriously? I just saved your stupid life, didn't I? I'm not going to kill you."
"But I'm sure you could get away with it, if it was you..."
"No, Komaeda. I just… ugh… what is wrong with you? I don't care if I could get away with it, I don't want to do it."
"But…"
"No! I will not kill you on a bridge. I will not kill you in a fridge. I do not care if you say it's okay! I don't want you to die that way. Or any way. So just... stop saying things like that!"
Komaeda's face was very, very red.
And his lips were trembling in something that couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to be a smile or a frown.
"You're such a good person, Hinata. You really shouldn't be so kind to trash like me, I don't-"
"Stop hovering over me when you're saying stuff like that, it's creeping me out," he grumbled, face too hot as he tried to sit up only to stop when he realized Komaeda wasn't moving back at all and they were suddenly way too close.
So close that he could feel the startled warmth of Komaeda's breath gusting against his cheek, smell his stupid mango-scented shampoo.
Where had he even gotten mango shampoo?
"Komaeda?"
"Hm?"
"Can you move back so I can get up?"
"Hm? Oh!" Komaeda scrambled back and he cursed, snagging him by his t-shirt and gripping as hard as he could to keep him from panicking himself right back over the edge of the bridge.
"Dammitohmygodwouldyoupleasepayattentiontowhereyoureat!"
"Oh, that was lucky," Komaeda replied, laughing awkwardly because he was simply the worst.
The worst.
The absolute worst.
"I hate you so much right now," he grumbled, keeping his hold on Komaeda's shirt as he clamored awkwardly to his feet. "That's it. No more bridges for you. Let's go find some lunch."
"Oh, but my box…"
"Leave it."
"But that's littering..."
"No, it's not, I'll come back and get it later."
"But…"
"No. Leave it. I'll take responsibility for it. It's fine."
"But my shoes…"
"You're lucky, aren't you?" He snapped, his heart still beating way too fast as he dragged him down the bridge back towards the hotel. "Maybe you'll trip over a spare pair on our way back to the hotel. I'll bring yours back to you later."
"But, Hinata…."
"Later."
It wasn't until they passed Ibuki halfway back to the hotel that he'd realized his fingers were still caught in the front of Komaeda's shirt, crumpling the white fabric against his sweaty palm.
"Oy! Oy! And what's going on here then, hm?" Ibuki called, practically bouncing up the sand to fall into step with them.
"Nothing," he said quickly, dropping his hold and wiping his damp hand against his pants. "It's nothing. Komaeda was just being an idiot and now we're going to get some lunch."
She nodded sagely, "Ah, Ibuki understands, relationships are hard work on an empty stomach. Ibuki will come too!"
"Great," he replied dryly, pretty sure she had the wrong idea, but too exhausted by the idea of correcting her to bother.
Anyway it was easier to smile with Ibuki slipping between them, rattling off ideas for titles for some new song she'd been working on as they walked past the hotel gates.
Easier not too pay too much attention or be too bothered when Komaeda slipped off towards his cabin instead of following them to the dining room. Easier to ignore the way his stomach tightened when it took Komaeda far longer than it should have to show up for lunch afterwards.
It wasn't like it was his job to babysit him.
He was a teenager not a toddler and he'd managed this long on his own.
He just didn't like the idea of not knowing what he was up to, that was all.
It always made him nervous.
And if he lingered longer than he absolutely had to over his lunch, stirring his salad back and forth and poking at the tomatoes for almost an hour, no one seemed to notice. Not even Nanami who had come in to sit beside him and eat a distracted lunch in between rounds of whatever fighting game she was currently playing.
Finally Komaeda had come stumbling through the door laughing at something a red-faced Mikan had said, still barefoot, hair limp and plastered against his head and neck and face as if he'd just stepped out of the shower.
He scowled at him as Komaeda settled across from him with a tiny plate of fruit and the ghost of a smile quirking his lips, "You're still not wearing shoes."
"I only have the one pair," Komaeda replied, popping a grape in his mouth. "And the sandals, but the strap on the sandals broke which was probably lucky because I'm a little clumsy in sandals."
"Fine, I'll go get your stupid shoes," he'd sighed, pushing to his feet.
He blinked back to awareness to find himself standing in the middle of the road on tremulous legs in front of the bridge to the central island.
In the dark.
Alone.
It was raining.
It had been raining for a long time and no time at all.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
There was somewhere he was supposed to be.
Somewhere he needed to go.
But he couldn't remember where.
And he couldn't remember why.
These were essential questions.
It was necessary to establish these things.
Nothing in his life makes any sense anymore.
His name was Hinata Hajime.
This was what he knew:
Nothing. More Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Colossal Amounts of Nothing.He didn't know where he was.
Didn't know if he was crazy or sane.
Whether he was still dreaming or still stuck in her game.
Whether he was sleeping or whether these were the last mad sparks of a dying brain.
He didn't know if this Komaeda had been real or if he was just a figment of his imagination.
Nothing made sense.
He didn't make sense, not even to himself.
But sometimes Komaeda had said his name as if it were important, as if they were something they'd never been.
That more often the way he'd said it had seemed bitter, mocking, mean.
He remembered watching Komaeda disappear, swallowed up by the darkness at the end of the hall.
He remembers not reaching out to stop him when he had a chance.
That even when he'd finally bothered to pursue him, he'd been nowhere to be found, as if he'd simply ceased to exist between one moment and the next.
It had felt like a punishment.
It still felt like a punishment.
He remembered the terror of inching through absolute darkness, of the water, of those unwanted hands brushing against him and the breathless relief of hearing Komaeda's voice in the dark.
Komaeda's quiet words and the touch of a hand against his own.
That horrifying realization, the agony of fingernails scrapping across his forearm and then…
And then….
That buzzing in his head again, like a hundred wasps brushing rough, frantic wings against his brain.
That terrible ache… the same as it had been on the beach.
And he'd… there was… there was… something… something he needed to remember.
And it was right there, right there and so obvious, so glaringly, painfully obvious, and yet every time he reached for it, it skittered away like a cockroach fleeing the light.
There was something there, some connection he could just barely feel…
Something…
If he could just reach…
And suddenly he wasn't standing in the road anymore.
Instead he was somewhere else.
The smell of sanitizer and blood, cool tile beneath him.
The hospital.
He was in the hospital.
He recognized the on-call room even though he'd only really seen it a few times, only slept there once.
But none of that mattered.
Not really.
Because he was there.
Lying on the floor, still as death, just out of reach.
His hair a matted, tangled, blood-stained mess that obscured his features.
"Komaeda," he was sure he whispered the word, certain, but there was nothing, no sound at all.
He felt the shape of the word on his lips, but the world was silent.
Still.
There was no rain, no breath, no nothing.
He couldn't even tell if Komaeda was dead or alive.
He was so pale and still.
And there was just...
So.
Much.
Blood.
Smeared across the floor, soaked into the once pristine white of his borrowed shirt, scattered in specks and careless smears all down his pale, bare legs.
"Where the hell are your freaking pants?" He whispered, demanded, even though he knew it wouldn't do any good. Even though there was still no sound to carry his irritation across the space between them.
It was a silly thing to be annoyed by.
He knew that.
He knew.
But it was easier to be annoyed.
Komaeda shifted, a sudden burst of silent movement, curling his knees up against his chest.
The wave of relief that rolled through him was immediate and inescapable.
He released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding into the silence, his face warm, almost feverish.
For a moment he'd thought...
It didn't matter.
Komaeda's hair fell away from his face as he turned his head, staring through him. His eyes were rimmed with red, shadows like bruises beneath, skin pale and blotchy red as if he'd been crying.
He looked exhausted and awful and somehow undeniably real.
And all that momentary relief he'd felt was trampled beneath the need to reach him.
Because he wasn't okay.
Because he was here.
He was real.
They both were.
He was so stupid.
So stupid not to have seen it before now.
"Komaeda!" He tried again, but there was still no sound, just silence complete and absolute.
He slapped his hands against the floor, pulled against whatever was holding him in place, keeping him achored, unable to cross the small distance separated them, kept him from grabbing and just shaking the hell out of him. He might not know where all that blood had come from but the last thing Komaeda should have been doing was just laying there and letting whatever wounds he had bleed.
He looked really, really bad.
Worse than he'd looked on the bridge or on the beach or in the diner.
Like he'd given up.
He scrapped his hands over the floor.
The blood was slick, slippery and warm beneath his fingers.
He could feel it.
Feel him.
His breath caught in his throat and he reached out again, fingernails scrapping against smooth tile, struggling for purchase and rustling the damp, bloodstained papers that were scattered around him like soggy oversized confetti.
His fingers were so close, so close, but he remained just out of reach.
"Komaeda! Get up!" He tried again, but there was still something holding him back, weighing him down.
It felt like he should be able to reach, like he might be able to if he just… if just pushed a little harder, lunged a little farther, a little faster, if he could just….
His ears popped, sudden and viciously painful, and sound flooded in to fill the void, the machine gun fire of rain against the roof and the grumble of distant thunder and Komaeda's harsh, wheezing breaths all made far too loud after the absolute silence that had come before. The sudden cacophony was so loud that it took him a minute to realize, to understand that beneath all that he can hear the mumble of Komaeda's voice, murmuring words he can't quite make sense of and laughing to himself.
And...
And...
He could hear something else too.
Someone else.
Someone scratching at the door, calling Komaeda's name again and again, asking him, begging him to open the door.
And he remembers fingers crawling over his tongue, thrusting down his throat and shudders, gagging, as he sees Komaeda raise his head just a little bit, gaze clouded.
And he can almost see the shape of his thoughts, taste desperation in the air, and before he's made a decision to do so he's lunging forward again, throwing all his weight forward, still not quite able to reach him, words a desperate snarl in his throat, "Don't be an idiot!"
And he him startle just a little, his head lifting, eyes wide and surprised as they dart around the room, sweeping past him.
He can see the shape of his name on his lips as he searches for him.
As he looks for him.
Something inside him breaks open, bleeds.
He woke on the road, rough pavement beneath him and rain pounding down against his skin and the chill of both felt like a slap in the face after the strange, humid warmth of that room.
"No!" He scrambled to his feet only to tip over and fall again, legs numb and useless once more.
He would have vomited if there'd been anything to left in him.
As it was he just heaved and choked, bracing his hands against the knees of his borrowed pants as he struggled to regain some grasp on coherency.
What the hell was that?
"What the fuck-" He choked between heaves, tears stinging his eyes, just to hear the words out loud.
It didn't make him feel any less completely insane, but… but.
That had been him.
Confused and scattered and scared and hurt and so obviously him.
Komaeda was at the hospital.
He'd known that already, remembered it vaguely from their conversation in the dark, but… that hadn't...
That had been so easy to write off, but this...
It had felt so real.
Laughter echoed around him. It was a terrible sound, a rough barking, biting sound that sounded nowhere near sane and it he let his head fall down against his knees, because he couldn't seem to make himself stop.
It was just so… ridiculous.
What the hell was he even doing?
Diners and dancing and kissing and blowjobs and man-eating puddles and music and danger and hospitals and a head full of scenes he could barely remember even now and wasn't sure belonged to him at all.
And now he was... what?
Before things had worked just like the real world or near enough and now...
Now nothing made sense.
What next? Would he grow wings? Sprout antlers?
It was like his brain had latched onto the idea of this being real and stirred in every bad science fiction movie he'd ever seen and run with it.
Maybe it was just his way of coping.
Maybe he just couldn't deal with the things he wanted or dreamed about and this was just... a way to make it okay.
Make it okay to be not okay, but...
Maybe nothing was real or everything was.
Maybe it was all a dream.
Or maybe Komaeda was really trapped in a room at the hospital and MIkan was scratching away at the door like a demented cat.
What choice did he have?
This entire… dream, nightmare, simulation, hallucination, whatever it was... maybe it wasn't real.
Maybe he just felt guilty.
Maybe he was just… just running after a ghost, letting himself be led around by the nose again and again.
Maybe he just couldn't bring himself to let him go.
And if it wasn't real... then wouldn't matter what he did.
It wouldn't matter if he saved himself or Komaeda or...
Had that really been Mikan?
She'd sounded so... weird, wrong, broken.
Fuck.
If it wasn't real, it wouldn't matter.
He could do anything he wanted or nothing at all and it wouldn't matter.
Eventually he'd wake up and and just have to deal with the fact that he was a terrible person who had terrible dreams.
That he was probably fucked up in some horrible unfixable way.
But if it was real...
If it was real.
If they were all still stuck.
Trapped.
If it was and he just left things as they were...
He remembered what it had felt like.
The way she'd crawled inside him.
How good it had felt.
How Komaeda had saved him from it, from all the awful things he'd wanted to do and be.
How could he not try and do the same for him?
Maybe he was just chasing the ghost of unfulfilled desires and maybe it was… stupid.
Maybe he was stupid or gullible or ridiculous for being so eager to buy into the possibility.
Maybe he should just fucking sit there in the middle of the damn road until he finally woke up but…
But.
But he could still hear Komaeda's voice in the dark whispering, "I'm really glad I got to see you."
And he was too.
He hadn't… he hadn't said it back, but he was… he was really glad.
For all the terrible things and the confusing things and the weirdness, he was glad he'd gotten to see him again.
And maybe that was stupid, maybe all this was just a fever dream or nightmare or a hallucination or… whatever.
Maybe it was and he was an idiot for going along, but… he wanted a chance to tell him that.
To apologize for everything he'd done and everything he hadn't.
To yell at him for everything he'd done and everything he hadn't.
But most of all, he just wanted a chance to help him.
Even if it were only in his head.
Or maybe he just wanted to be needed.
Maybe he was the one who needed help.
But, in the end, maybe that didn't matter so much.
Because if there was any chance, any chance at all that he, that they, were still trapped there, he still needed to try.
Whether it was for pure or selfish reasons didn't really matter very much at all.
Maybe it would later.
But that was later.
Later he could curse himself for being a selfish bastard or an idiot.
Later he could have another total meltdown about everything he'd done and throw himself off a bridge or something.
But for now… for now he needed to get off his dead ass and get to that stupid hospital.
Maybe Komaeda would hate him when he knew.
But that was okay.
For now, he just needed to get to him.
To them, if Mikan was there too.
He'd wanted to go home with them.
With all of them.
And maybe he still could.
His name was Hinata Hajime.
And he still doesn't know anything.
Not for certain.
But, even if it was just for a moment, that part hadn't really mattered very much at all.